Dead Heat
by the Mirage Prismatic
Summary: An extended version of 'Burning Heat' from my Bereft One-Shot collection Desert Maze and standing by itself. Prompt: So, how did Kid Flash and Artemis even get to that shack in the middle of the desert?


An extended version of 'Burning Heat' from my Bereft One-Shot collection: Desert Maze and standing by itself.

**Prompt: **So, how did Kid Flash and Artemis even _get_ to that shack in the middle of the desert?

**_Young Justice: Dead Heat_**

****Artemis stumbled through the thick shifting sands, the coolness of the night pressing in on her face a sharp contrast to the hotness of the sand beneath her boots. Her head throbbed in pain and her vision crossed, blurred and slid out violently out of focus, strands of hair floating in front of her eyes.

She stumbled to the top of a dune and cried out, as her ankle buckled sending her sprawling into the sand. Artemis turned her face on her side and struggled to her feet beneath her but her muscles gave out and she gratefully succummbed to darkness...

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He woke up to sunlight and burning sand. His face was half in the sand. He groaned and rolled over; moaning as the sunlight burned more brightly into his eyes. What he wouldn't give for those mask lenses right now...wait.

_Sand? Beach?_

He shot up but was instantly A; disappointed and B: in pain. There was miles of sand and a killer headache just decided to announce itself, throbbing through his skull and ringing in his head. Pinpricks of light danced in his eyes.

He rubbed his eyes and pulled his goggles down, breathing a sigh of relief as the light from the burning sun dimmed. Wait...he looked down. He was in his uniform-why was this black? No wonder he was burning up.

Slowly, slowly he stood. He noticed he was standing at the foot of a sand dune. Cramps were just beginning to throb, the heat seeping through his uniform. He stretched, reaching to his toes, trying to get his muscles warmed up.

_Okay...I'm in the middle of a desert. But how did I get here?_

**Warm up when you can; unless you want your muscles to shred in mid-run.**

A desert with lots of sand, lots of burning, killer sun and no people in sight. Where was Flash? Where was everyone? Where was this? The Sahara?

Kid Flash sighed and started doing those yoga poses Flash had drilled into his head, trying to calm his mind down.

**When you find yourself in a fix, stay focused!**

Wait, what was that? He paused in bridge and craned his back to look again just to make sure he wasn't seeing a mirage or something. Was that...blonde hair? But it was draped across the top of a sand dune...

He fell; his hands slipped from under him and he collapsed right into the sand.

He rolled to his feet and jogged to the top of the dune-he didn't think he could run yet after laying out in the burning sun for god knew how long.

The hair (or whoever was attached to it) definitely wasn't moving. Kid Flash approached it cautiously, reached the top, bent down and tugged the hair. Nothing happened, unless you count the faint moan.

He crawled up a bit farther and found himself looking into the face of a girl with blonde hair, dressed in green sprawled almost facedown in the sand with a bow lying inches from her outstretched hand. There was a quiver full of arrows strapped to her back.

_Well, it's not doing her any good suffocating in the sand._he thought, carefully turning her over and clearing the sand off her face with his glove, getting the grit away from her eyes and mouth.

Wally's brow furrowed. _She kinda looks like GA..._The blonde hair and the green costume were uncannily similar Green Arrow's.

_Wow...she's really pretty._He shook his head. Focus! He pressed a hand to her pulse and was relieved that it was still going and faint breath escaped from her.

"Good, she's still alive. But how did we get out here in the first place?" He looked up, scanning the horizon. _I need to get her under cover...passing out in this temperature can't be good._

He paused, spotting a distant blot.

"That looks like a shack. Maybe someone lives there..." He looked down at the girl in the sand and up at the sky. _We need to get out of this heat and the faster the better._He hooked her bow over the arrow shafts on her back and scooped her up bridal style, wobbling slightly.

_Collapse when you get to that shack._ He directed himself silently. _And not before!_After taking another glance around, Kid Flash took a breath and took off down the dune and across the sand plains, a black blur across the sand.

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The shack was a shack, empty and abandoned but despite the holes in the ceiling it shielded them from the worst of the sun's rays.

Wally let out an exhausted breath, sinking to his knee and laying the girl on the floor. Then he remembered it would painful to lay on arrows and a bow and gently took them off and laid them on the ground next to her. His vision was beginning to slide out of focus.

_I just...need a quick nap..._

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The sun had cooled off but the girl was still out cold. Her breath came more naturally now, her skin had cooled off and she looked as if she was sleeping rather than unconscious.

Wally yawned, laying on his back next to the girl lazily before staggering to his feet, going outside to look around. The desert was devoid of any sign of life. Wally went back inside.

_We should probably figure a way out of here. Maybe she knows how we got here._ He paused and frowned. _What if she's a bad guy?_ Then he dismissed the concern. _We're in the same boat here. _

"Hey, Beautiful, " Wally knelt by her side, shaking her shoulder. "Wake up."

Her eyes fluttered as a low moan escaped her. Her hand went up to her head as her eyes cracked open, sitting forcing herself to sit up. She stared at him, eyes wide.

Where _was_ she? The last thing she remembered was collapsing in the sand!

The boy grinned and then she panicked, grabbing her bow and quiver and scrambling to the wall.

"Hey, it's okay, it's okay." he soothed. "I won't hurt you. I-I'm one of the good guys. You know. Kid Flash."

"Seen Kid Flash on the news." she countered. "He doesn't wear black."

'Kid Flash' looked down at himself. "Yeah, I'm little unclear on that myself."

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><p>So, how did you like it? Please review.<p> 


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